FOX19 has exclusively learned that as many as four people may be the first Cincinnati Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees to face disciplinary action, and possibly even criminal charges, for allegedly targeting Tea Party and Liberty groups applying for non-profit status.

On Wednesday, the IRS announced that it had pinpointed two employees at the agency’s Cincinnati office for being ‘primarily’ responsible. …

One of FOX19’s two sources went on say that these four IRS workers claim “they simply did what their bosses ordered.” FOX19 reported on Tuesday that the report by the Office of Inspector General states that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011.

In fact, according to that report, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax exempt organizations, was told on June 29, 2011 that groups with ‘Tea Party’, ‘Patriot’ or ‘9/12 Project’ in their names were being flagged for additional, and often burdensome, scrutiny.

Did I say 300 organizations? According to the report, Reps. Jim Jordan and Darrell Issa now put that number closer to 500. If it was just these four agents, they’d have to have been rather, er, productive. Besides, if it was just four agents in one office, Lerner wouldn’t have spent two years trying to massage the process to make it look less partisan — she would have told the four to knock it off in 2011, and the IRS chief counsel would have insisted on it when notified in August 2011.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official who apologized for targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny is married to an attorney whose firm hosted a voter registration organizing event for the 2012 Obama re-election campaign, praised President Obama’s policy work, and had one of its partners appointed by Obama to a key ambassadorship.

The 400-attorney firm hosted an organizing meeting at its Atlanta office for people interested in helping with voter registration for the Obama re-election campaign.

This is not the first of Lerner’s connections to the president to surface. Earlier this week The Daily Caller reported that Lerner personally signed the tax-exemption approval for a shady charity run by Obama’s half-brother, after an inexplicably brief one-month application process.

The reason Miller claimed that the two-maybe-four employees had already been disciplined was to head off potential criminal charges. That step would get them talking about who ordered the targeting of conservative groups. Two of the employees in that office — who may or may not be among that supposedly rogue group — will testify to Congress on Monday, and that may give us a more credible account than two IRS agents wreaking havoc for three years — with management aware of the problem for two of those years — without being reined in until after the election.

will testify to Congress on Monday, and that may give us a more credible account than two IRS agents wreaking havoc for three years — with management aware of the problem for two of those years — without being reined in until after the election.

Communists infiltrate, work diligently, make huge webs of interconnected connections, & are PATIENT.
They work tirelessly to destroy from within.
And they do whatever it takes including breaking the law.
When they’re caught, they scatter & blame & disappear & spin the propaganda machine.
All one has to do is read the history of the CPUSA in the early to mid-1900s & you will see all the parallels you need to.
And what happened then when the communists were found out?
Not much.
The high level communists continued to stay.
READ THE HISTORY.

One of FOX19′s two sources went on say that these four IRS workers claim “they simply did what their bosses ordered.” FOX19 reported on Tuesday that the report by the Office of Inspector General states that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011.

Show of hands of those surprised. Thought so.

There is no way a few rogue employees would be able to harass 500 conservative groups without higher-ups knowing about it. That doesn’t make them any less guilty because they also clearly knew what they were doing and did not call it to anybody’s attention. They are as innocent as the Nazis at the death camps that were just following orders and probably more so because the Nazis did not have the ability to call an IG hotline.

Is there some kind of Reverend Moon-type dating service that routinely marries government workers to liberal politicos and journalists? This liberal family tree is starting to look like a telephone pole.

Two of the employees in that office — who may or may not be among that supposedly rogue group — will testify to Congress on Monday

That’s too much time. Are they at least in protective custody in a secret location. It’s best to get witnesses on record immediately when dealing with organized crime syndicates, but if they can’t, isolation is the next best thing.

So, are these the FOUR who actually constructed those law-breaking forms and questionnaires required of TP, patriots, etc.??
Doesn’t sound like it, does it ?
Can’t wait to discover who created those.
Popcorn.

They need to testify under oath, Be threatened with time in the big house and offered a bargain if they cough up who the higher ups were in the chain of command. Just keep working it that way right on up to the top.

The IRS needs to be abolished. Even though these low level drones were just following orders, the problem is, they followed the orders and probably relished every minute of it. When you give average paper pushers that much power, they start to enjoy it. No way should they have the added power they will get when they start to run Obamacare.

One of FOX19′s two sources went on say that these four IRS workers claim “they simply did what their bosses ordered.” FOX19 reported on Tuesday that the report by the Office of Inspector General states that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011.

I have repeatedly said that the political appointee running the various federal agencies can order their subordinates to carry out their will, like the DoL, BLS and the BEA, for example. This business at the IRS proves those assertions correct.

If you know any Liberals then you know that they don’t need orders from higher ups; it’s how they all fly anyway. My bet is it’s simply another manifestation of the hive mentality at work that we can expect the more Liberals control the reins of power.

I have thought the same thing from the outset. Where are these forms? Are they on the official IRS website that can be downloaded? Who created these forms? I doubt it was some level peon. I’ve dealt with them and they don’t know their azzes from their elbows.

If there was ever a time to enter an underground economy, this would be it.

Badger40 on May 16, 2013 at 8:09 AM

Well, the shadow economy is on the rise, that’s for sure. This is what inevitably happens when any government gets too big, too intrusive, and over-regulates. Leftists will never understand this because they’re economic illiterates. They don’t understand (or care) how the world actually works.

Look, a couple of low level employees can ask a lot of awfully stupid questions, but they can’t re-organize the IRS. Who established the Cincinati team? Who gave them their marching orders? Who did they report to? What did they say in those reports? Who saw those reports? What did they do when they saw those reports. If there is going to be a serious investigation someone is going to have to follow the chain of command to see where it leads. In private industry you “follow the money,” in government you also follow the chain of command.

I spent the first few years of my career as a bank examiner working for the US Treasury. The idea that a few rogue employees did this doesn’t square with my experience. When you’re working in a bureaucracy at a certain level (as I did), your focus is on complying with the directives from higher up. You don’t just go do whatever you want, even if you think your political boss is going to like it. The reason is that while the political bosses come and go, the bureaucracy endures. Call it CYA, or call it “do what you’re told,” but the idea that a large and powerful agency just did this on its own is laughable to me.

Case in point…I was at OCC when new compliance directives were handed down to start getting more strict on banks for Community Reinvestment Act compliance. I was present in the boardroom when an EIC told a Board that if the bank didn’t start making riskier loans in “underserved” areas that the rating of the bank was in jeopardy (which would result in, among other things, higher FDIC insurance expenses, increased exam scrutiny, etc). The idea that bureaucrats just go off on their own crusades just doesn’t happen, again in my experience.

Gotta wonder what prizes these rogue employees were promised if they did get caught? Bigger bonus’, transfer to and even easier job,bundles of cash in 6 months?
No telling.
The ony thing we know is that lots of tea party groups were prevented from collecting any cash that could be used to unseat the dear leader.
The left is so far ahead of us politically its not even a contest. They even know how we will react to everything they do “if” they get caught. We need some politically astute people in the RNC/GOP if we want to ever win against this chicago commie thugocracy.

If there is going to be a serious investigation someone is going to have to follow the chain of command to see where it leads. In private industry you “follow the money,” in government you also follow the chain of command.

Fred 2 on May 16, 2013 at 8:32 AM

If there is going to be a serious investigation, it will not be the one the administration is pushing headed up by Lew. Congress has an outside shot. But I also think that Congress should put the brakes on the IRS as enforcement agency for Obamacare because they have proven to be absolutely untrustworthy. What they did is as bad is if the Social Security Administration decided to provide the Dems with SSNs.

When you’re running corrupt operations in the United States government you compartmentalize and give only as much information as necessary.

“Listen, we’re scrutinizing potential terrorist organizations applying for tax exemption. We have another team looking at leftist terrorist front groups, you’ll be looking at conservative groups. Tell no one! We don’t want to alert these terrorists. And never forget your doing your country a great service.”

Why else segregate the applications? Those doing the application reviews did not select which applications to review.

It is really not fair that government employees are allowed to contribute to campaigns, but federal contractors are barred. The reasoning there is that federal contractors might vote with their cash for someone who will give them employment/contracts. But government employees are doing this to grow government and increase their own paychecks. This Lois character made more and more money under Obama while ordinary people found the economy shrinking. Her $170K salary plus bonuses kept coming. I think at work, government workers should be forbidden from discussing politics and not allowed to solicit or give money to the candidates. And the federal contractor rules should be applied to the Unions respecting whatever government their members are employed by. Just for Fairness.

If the culprits are just two low level cubicle dwellers in the Cincinnati office, why would Comrade O “fire” the IRS Commissioner?

It is irrelevant that he didn’t really fire Miller. What matters is Dear Leader is saying he did and between him that is the reason.

How many layers of bureaucrats are between the IRS Commissioner and these two low level scapegoats in Cincinnati?

How many layers of bureaucrats are there between the Comrade O and the IRC Commissioner, and between him and whoever ordered the data mining of AP phone records, and between him and whoever gave the “stand down” order(s) in Benghazi, and so on and so forth.

If the IRC commissioner is being held accountable for these two low level IRS scapegoats, shouldn’t Comrade O be held accountable for the actions of Sebelius, who is shaking down private citizens to pay for an Obamacare “education” initiative, and for Rice’s lies to the American people about Benghazi?

I was determined that we should get to the bottom of the matter, and that the truth should be fully brought out—no matter who was involved.

President Richard Milhous Nixon, April 30, 1973

kingsjester on May 16, 2013 at 8:38 AM

Il Duce makes Nixon look like a quaint amateur from a bygone era…aided and abetted by a Crush Media who can’t stay off the crackpipe waiting for Barry to bestow super coolness factor on each so they can post the coolness on their twitter feeds.

The abuse of power may not be confined to the IRS. It might also involve high-ranking Senate Democrats who pressured the IRS to conduct such witch hunts and threatened action if it didn’t.

In September 2010, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus wrote to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, requesting that the agency survey major nonprofits involved in political campaign activity for their possible “violation of tax laws.” In February 2012, Sens. Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, Al Franken, Jeff Merkley, Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Udall and Sheldon Whitehouse wrote a similar letter to Mr. Shulman, and promised to introduce legislation if the IRS failed to “prevent abuse of the tax code by political groups.” In July 2012 and again in August, Sen. Carl Levin complained to the IRS about its apparent passivity.

Is there some kind of Reverend Moon-type dating service that routinely marries government workers to liberal politicos and journalists? This liberal family tree is starting to look like a telephone pole.

Fallon on May 16, 2013 at 8:12 AM

Got an e-mail the other day showing the incest of our media.

CNN’s president – Virginia Moseley is married to Deputy secratary Tom Nides.

CBS president David Rhodes is brother of Top obama official Ben Rhodes

ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama special adviser Elizabeth Sherwood.

Supoena the 4, give em immunity for testimony and get the popcorn buttered.

bloviator on May 16, 2013 at 8:42 AM

Screw the subpeonas. There is enough to indict and convict the Cincinnati Four. The question is if they so love the rat-eared coward and Democrat party they are willing to take the rap or if their attorneys will reach some sort of a plea bargain. But of course it is all moot because the DOJ is just as corrupt as the rest of the administration.

The way to get the peons to talk is to find out who they are and go after them online. Post their names and facebook pages, etc etc. and let all of America (well, the 50% that cares) pour their scorn out onto these liberal losers.

“Lois Lerner, the senior executive in charge of the IRS tax exemption department and the federal employee at the center of the exploding scandal over the IRS targeting of conservative, evangelical and pro-Israel non-profits, was given $42,531 in bonuses between 2009 and 2011.

That figure was included in data provided by the IRS in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Washington Examiner. Lerner is director of the IRS exempt organizations division, which processes and approves or denies applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Lerner received $17,220 for 2010, $14,691 for 2011 and $10,620 for 2012, the most recent year for which the IRS said data was available.

Her annual salary in 2009 and 2010 was $172,200, and $177,000 in 2011 and 2012. With the bonuses, Lerner was paid a total of $740,931 for the four-year period…”

It is really not fair that government employees are allowed to contribute to campaigns, but federal contractors are barred. The reasoning there is that federal contractors might vote with their cash for someone who will give them employment/contracts. But government employees are doing this to grow government and increase their own paychecks. This Lois character made more and more money under Obama while ordinary people found the economy shrinking. Her $170K salary plus bonuses kept coming. I think at work, government workers should be forbidden from discussing politics and not allowed to solicit or give money to the candidates. And the federal contractor rules should be applied to the Unions respecting whatever government their members are employed by. Just for Fairness.

Fleuries on May 16, 2013 at 8:43 AM

Agreed. When we decided to let government workers form greedy unions that should have also been forbidden from participation in the political process beyond voting. What we have now is a perfect circle of corruption.

Boehner should go on tv every day and say those magic words, ‘who’s going to jail over this’. It would seem that threats of prosecution are the only thing that will get those low level workers to fess us.

I’d be interested to know what the breakdown is, on average, between formal letters to agencies by Congresscritters and informal behind the scenes communications with these same agencies by the Congresscritters and their staff. I wonder how much follow-up pressure these same Senators put on the IRS to act on their requests.

I mention it because a friend of mine who works in the media has told me on several occasions that our Congressional Rep or his staff calls his office almost everyday to complain about or demand additions to their news articles and such.

These “rogue” employees better get ready to start whistle blowing and fast or they’re going to take the fall for the Alinski-ites from Chicago. You better believe it that their superiors ordered it. These tactics came from Obama’s sycophants by way of Obama. This is straight from Chicago-style politics and I don’t think the low level employees in Cincinnati are as familiar with those methods as Obama and his friends.

Boy, these people in the various agencies are sure being played for suckers. Obama and his pals will leave government richer and richer unscarred and the lackeys will pay dearly with careers and possible jail time. Too bad the liberal media hacks (like Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz) who have facilitated Obama can’t see some of that jail time and career ending consequences too.

BUH-BAM! Harry Reid just got a iece of the IRS Scandal Shi’ite Pie dropped in his lap!

The question was asked, “During the 2012 election campaign Harry Reid publicly attacked Mitt Romney by adamantly declaring Romney had not paid taxes for 10 years….so how did Reid know that? Where did he get this information?”

This really is very serious…this is the all powerful IRS, a federal agency with dictatorial like authority over the very core of ours or any nations most important asset….THE MONEY!!!!

They can send people to prison (or Gulags, when applicable), freeze their finances, harass them incessantly, and do this with no accountability. All by people who took an oath to be on their honor in terms of being impartial and apolitical. (Especially in this administration and very especially by the communist)

Can the IRS be trusted any longer? And now this broad, vast government agency is to administer our medical futures and have more access to our private lives than ever before.

If an agency wants info make sure it is on an official government form that can be easily found on the Internet. If not then it is probably made up. Government has a form number on everything official.

” Does any of this sound like it’s the result of a random bureaucratic snafu or the work of a couple of “rogue agents”?

Corruption: The inspector general’s report on the IRS targeting of conservatives makes it seem like a case of bureaucratic bumbling. But the more we learn, the more it looks like a concerted effort to hobble Obama’s political foes.

‘Inappropriate criteria,” “insufficient oversight” and “lack of managerial review.” That’s what led the IRS to target hundreds of conservative groups for intrusive, costly and lengthy scrutiny during their application for tax-exempt status, according to the IG report released on Tuesday.

In other words, it wasn’t a politically motivated attack on conservative groups during a presidential campaign. It was just a case of some bad wording and a lack of good bosses.

Except that, as details of the IRS scandal emerge, it’s increasingly giving the appearance of a wide-scale effort to tilt the playing field against conservative activist groups who might have been helpful to Republican candidates in the 2012 election, while at the same time coddling liberal groups helpful to Obama.

Consider what we now know the IRS did:

• Gave preferential treatment to liberal groups. On Tuesday, USA Today reported that while the IRS was hounding conservative groups and holding up their applications for tax-exempt status, it was quickly ushering liberal groups with names like “Progress Florida” and “Missourians Organizing for Reform” through the process.

USA Today found that in the 27 months after Feb. 2010, the IRS did not approve a single Tea Party application. Over those same months, however, dozens of applications submitted by liberal groups that were engaged in the same type of activities and were seeking the same tax status as the conservative ones sailed through the agency.

“As applications for conservative groups sat in limbo,” USA Today reported, “groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months.”

Meanwhile, the IG found that of the 296 applications filed by conservative groups it examined, more than half were still in limbo, with some of them having been on hold for more than three years.

• Made unusual document requests. Not only did the IRS target conservative groups for extra scrutiny, it also asked for massive amounts of information that it couldn’t possibly need to determine tax-exempt status.

Among them: donor names, blog posts, transcripts of radio interviews, resumes of top officers, board minutes and summaries of material passed out at meetings.

Some groups were asked about connections to other conservative groups or individuals.

The IRS demanded, for example, that the Center for Constitutional Law “explain in detail your organization’s involvement with the Tea Party.”

• Engaged in selective leaks. This week, ProPublica, a liberal-leaning nonprofit journalism organization, revealed that the IRS had leaked it nearly a dozen pending applications, including one submitted by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS.

• Covered it up. If this was all an innocent mistake, why then did acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller tell Republican senators in April 2012 that conservative groups weren’t getting any special treatment, at least a month after learning they were? Another top IRS official appears to have misled Congress on four separate occasions last year.

And why is it that, as the New York Times reports, no one involved with the scandal at the IRS has been disciplined while “one in Cincinnati was promoted”?

In the end, the IRS managed to put its thumb on the political scale by squelching political activity on the right — some groups report curtailing get-out-the-vote efforts, spending piles of money on legal fees or disbanding altogether in the face of IRS inquisitions.

And all of it happened during a close and hotly contested presidential election where such mischievousness could make a real difference…”

When the American Public has a chance to go after the IRS does O think we won’t bare our fangs and rip the Tax Gestappo to unrecognizable shreds? Disband the IRS and Jail the O. Plastik on May 16, 2013 at 8:12 AM

The “American Public” in this effort is now represented by Eric Holder.

Show of hands of those surprised. Thought so.
Happy Nomad on May 16, 2013 at 8:12 AM

Obama picks Eric Holder as his A.G., despits:

– Holder helping obtain pardons for Mark Rich & the terrorist group FALN (& hiding documents during that process)…
– Holder encouraging/working for clemency for members of the Weatherman Underground, caught transporting 740 lbs of TNT to use in their bombings/terrorist attacks
– Holder’s law firm representing John Corzine, MF Global chairman who ripped off $1.5 billion from investors & escaped ALL punishment
– Who was part of the Elian Gonzales incident in which armed personnel barged into a civilian house, took him from the home, & sent him back to Cuba at gun-point

And anyone is surprised this man is in the center of all this scandal, perpetrated 3 Felony Counts of Perjury before Congress, & is the 1st AG in US History to ever be Censured?!

Or how about this – is anyone surprised about this ISR scandal when Obama’s hand-picked Sect of the Treasury was/is a TAX CHEAT?

Going back to the Seventies, the progressives have been moving “functions” out of DC to the hinterlands, for several reasons.

First of all, it’s classic pork-barrel politics. “Bringing home the bacon”(government jobs) to “loyal” progressive states and Congressional districts always plays well with local supporters. West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVA), the “King of Pork”, had BATFE move its computer center that keeps track of firearms (including especially those in private hands) to the Mountain State, both for pork-barrel and purely ideological reasons. His successor, Joe “I Hate Guns And Their Owners” Manchin (D-WVA), keeps it there for the same reasons.

Second there’s ideology. As stated above, Byrd liked having BATFE’s database under his personal control. Most such operations end up in places where a Senator or Congresscritter who gets warm and fuzzy thoughts about the operation can have it as part of their fiefdom. It comes in handy when they want to use such ops to further their “agendas” without all that tedious mucking about with legislation.

Third, there’s the principle of dispersion in the military sense. Most people who are exercised about Federal government activities think Washington is where the problems are based. They appeal to their Representatives, and if the Rep isn’t a progressive, they may even try to “look into it”.

Surprise! It’s not in Washington. It’s in Cincinnati, or St. Louis, or Lompoc, or Some Wide Spot In The Road East Of West A$$hole, Nowhere. Where there’s no way to “conveniently” look it over.

Very few Congressthings will willingly leave the Beltway. Besides “missing votes”, they’d miss the cocktail parties- where all the “Real Work” gets done.

People worry about Washington, often never realising that the functions of government they worry most about are often right in their own back yards.

It’s not an accident. It’s because your Dear Leaders don’t want you, or anybody else, interfering in their fun.

These “rogue” employees better get ready to start whistle blowing and fast or they’re going to take the fall for the Alinski-ites from Chicago. You better believe it that their superiors ordered it. These tactics came from Obama’s sycophants by way of Obama. This is straight from Chicago-style politics and I don’t think the low level employees in Cincinnati are as familiar with those methods as Obama and his friends.

Boy, these people in the various agencies are sure being played for suckers. Obama and his pals will leave government richer and richer unscarred and the lackeys will pay dearly with careers and possible jail time. Too bad the liberal media hacks (like Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz) who have facilitated Obama can’t see some of that jail time and career ending consequences too.

iamsaved on May 16, 2013 at 9:16 AM

Wrong. Without a Special Prosecutor, the criminals in the IRS can be quietly shuffled off into another position, and promised a nice bonus for keeping quiet. The dipstick Holder will never place them in legal jeopardy because he doesn’t want them talking.

This is why we need a way to get around the dipstick Holder, and that means Special Prosecutor.